Woot ! Go Tiger go !

Thanks for the update. I finally got Wow running after my leopard upgrade by giving up and reinstalling the game from my install DVD's.

I reported the same sort of problem shortly after BC came out, with screen shots and system info and everything. I've been playing like that since then. It's painful.

I'm building a windows box next week. GG Blizz/Apple. I'm tired of waiting for this to be fixed.

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Q u o t e:
I reported the same sort of problem shortly after BC came out, with screen shots and system info and everything. I've been playing like that since then. It's painful.

I'm building a windows box next week. GG Blizz/Apple. I'm tired of waiting for this to be fixed.

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Before you blame Blizz/Apple, you should read this:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2650557735&sid=1#11

I am encountering this, and have been since the install of Leopard.
Pertinent details from my System Profiler:

Hardware Overview:
Model Name: Power Mac G4
Model Identifier: PowerMac3,5
Processor Name: PowerPC G4 (2.1)
Processor Speed: 1 GHz
Number Of CPUs: 2
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per CPU): 2 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 133 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.3.3f2

GeForce FX 5200:

Chipset Model: GeForce FX 5200
Type: Display
Bus: AGP
Slot: SLOT-1
VRAM (Total): 128 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0321
Revision ID: 0x00a2
ROM Revision: 2060
Displays:
Display:
Resolution: 1024 x 768 @ 85 Hz
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Display Connector:
Status: No display connected


System Software Overview:

System Version: Mac OS X 10.5 (9A581)
Kernel Version: Darwin 9.0.0
Boot Volume: Soundwave
Boot Mode: Normal
Computer Name: Durandal
User Name: xxxxx
Time since boot: 9:00

I just tried the latest build of the PTR, and no longer see the graphics glitches, but notice that the performance of the game has gone down from live by around 10FPS. Did you have to dumb down the graphics on the PTR to get rid of the graphics glitches? Standing in the same place on live i was getting 35 FPS, on the PTR in the same spot i was getting ~26. It feels more like the way the game performed in Tiger.
For us with the nvdidia driver bug, are we going back to tiger like performance to get the game playable until they fix the driver or is most of the improvement I have noticed from installing leopard just going to go away?

Thanks for any info you could provide.

-J

I am using the same settings as live as far as i can tell. in 2.3 you have removed some of the graphics options available in 2.2, so I cannot say for sure. The ones present between the two are the same. I am running a Dual 2.5Ghz PowerMac with a GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL. This platform was the one seeing alot of issues on the live build with graphics errors. These errors seem to occur alot less frequently in the PTR build, but I have noticed flying around shattrah and Terokar Forest that the FPS is a steady 9-10 lower than the live build. Perhaps a byproduct of whatever you had to do to get rid of the glitches?

I have a Dual G5 (2GHz) with an NV6800 and Leopard and have this issue however it doesn't stop the game from being playable. Actually I thought that it was a recent Mac bug because I have an Intel iMac with an ATi and Tiger and it exhibits similar problems.

My question is this: When I'm running the WoW client I have a kernal_task that takes up 95-100% (out of 200) of CPU resources in Activity Monitor. The iMac doesn't have this issue. Is this a related issue or is there something else at work here?

Let me know if you need any more information.

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Q u o t e:



The specific error manifests as a distortion or flicker of geometry in the game world that may come and go depending on scene content or camera position and angle.

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i'm wanting to upgrade to leopard but this is holding me back. i this just an annoying graphic glitch or does it decrease frame rates or mess up the graphics so much that the game is not not playable/enjoyable?

i'm running pretty low on fps as it is right now and i don't think i can take a big hit.

No iSight camera is usually connected. One was since the upgrade to see the new iChat features which I later leared require Intel. :( The only odd peripheral that is usually connected to the system is a Logitech USB headset (sans their drivers).

System specs: Leopard 10.5 on a Dual 2GHz G5 (Late 2004), 3.5GB RAM, NV6800U (AGP). I run the game with pretty much all sliders at maximum and have death effect, trilinear filtering, and vsync off. (Actually, I used to have those three on but I did a reinstall of the WoW client and just haven't changed them back yet) I run the game in Maximized Windowed mode at 1680x1050 on the primary display and the secondary display at 1024x768 usually has something else running like iTunes, iChat, Safari, MS's RDC, Terminal, DVD Player, you name it. The machine gets quite a workout.

The game is very playable most of the time. I know it's anecdotal evidence but I'm having no showstopping issues. The worst is the occasional minor model distortion which I've also seen on an Intel Mac running Tiger. While it can disrupt your field of view, it it is nothing major. One of these days I'll record video from the Intel Mac as well for comparison.

I believe the kernal_task issue was due to running WoW on the machine after resuming from sleep. After a restart this issue went away. I'd also like to note that I would get assertion errors when logging in while the kernal_task issue was in effect.

The temporary fix, for me at least, was to not let the machine sleep. Screen blanking and turning off drives was still permitted and the system has been up for 20+ hours, at least 6 of them runing WoW, with no major issues. As a matter of fact, it's running WoW as I type this.

If I can be of further assistance, please let me know. Thanks Tigerclaw and the rest of the Mac team.

Edited to point out that no iSight is currently attached. Also, if it makes any difference, it was a standard upgrade to Leopard from Tiger and not a clean install.

I have Leopard running on a Intel IMac and I have seen nothing but improvements when playing wow. I think Leopard was made to optimize Intel based Macs not PowerPC. I just home no more bugs come out. Compared to my other comp running vista Leopard whoops butt in the bug free world.

Thanks for the reply Tigerclaw, The frame-rates are back to the same as live :) I have however found areas of the world that still exhibit large amounts of rendering problems on the latest PTR. I am still seeing a ton of glitches at Toshies station and in that zone in general. Are those something that only apple/nvidia can fix? It was so bad in Toshies station that I couldn't see the terrain at all. I can post a movie of it if you would like. Thanks for the hard work fixing these bugs!

-Jon

EDIT: here is the movie: http://216.55.164.214/wowptr.mov

Have you received any word about apple and nvidias progress on this bug? It is really annoying for us PPC/AGP/NV users. I really hope they get it into 5.1.0